Universal #1967

Legacy number: 1967

 Number  1961
 Original  Vowel co-occurrence displays an associative tendency.
Consonant co-occurrence displays a dissociative tendency.
 Standardized  Within words (or also relevant other domains, such as stems), co-occurring vowels tend to be similar with respect to place and manner of articulation and laryngeal specification, while co-occurring consonants (adjacent as well as distant) tend to be dissimilar.
 Keywords  phonotactics, vowel, consonant, word, assimilation, dissimilation
 Domain  prosodic phonology
 Type  unconditional
 Status  achronic
 Quality  statistical
 Basis  impressions; a sample of Polynesian lgs (Krupa); Vietnamese, Turkish, Russian (Zubkova); OCP effects are on record for countless lgs
 Source  Butskhrikidze 2002: 61ff., based on earlier claims by, among others, C. D. Chrétien 1965, V. Krupa 1971, L. G. Zubkova 1990

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Discussion
Notes
Instantiations of this tendency:vowel harmony more common than consonant harmony;Obligatory Contour Principle, requiring dissimilarity of adjacent tones, features, segments [really more relevant for consonants than vowels?];avoidance of consonant clusters, and if there are any, Sonority Sequencing.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
Instantiations of this tendency:
vowel harmony more common than consonant harmony;
Obligatory Contour Principle, requiring dissimilarity of adjacent tones, features, segments [really more relevant for consonants than vowels?];
avoidance of consonant clusters, and if there are any, Sonority Sequencing.